


To Go Quietly Into The Night

by sea_sighs



Category: Black Sails
Genre: 3x01, Angst, I hope, M/M, i think, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-04 02:13:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6636949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sea_sighs/pseuds/sea_sighs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>“Do you know what you are offering?” Flint whispers, his feet moving on their accord. </em>He watches as his own shadow eclipse the light on John’s face, closer and closer until both of them are left in the dark<br/> <br/>  <em>John breathes and Flint is so close he can feel the heat of it fan over him.</em></p><p>  </p><p>  <em>“Yes” </em></p><p> </p><p>-</p><p>A study between the subtle interactions these two have, set at the start of season 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Go Quietly Into The Night

**Author's Note:**

> First and foremost I'd really like to thank @neversurfacedagain and @platypused, who basically proof-read the mess that this fic originally was and gave me the best advice. You guys are awesome. And secondly, this fic is set in slight AU, where the Walrus crew manages to get restocked and goes on another raid before the storm happens. I hope you enjoy and constructive crit is always welcome :)

Flint’s breaths turn ragged as he stares at her.

As he stares at the unbroken line of blood. There is that same jagged black hole, that same lifeless expression, the same dark brown eyes that stare right through him. 

Flint has been broken so many times before, but never like this.

His lungs ache as each godforsaken breath leaves his throat. Each ragged exhale tumbling into the night. Only to be swallowed up by the solemn silence that surrounds him. 

Some distant part of him can hear how he sounds. He doesn’t keen; he doesn’t cry like men should. The sound of his mourning is quieter now after all the lessons he had learned.   


But when he stumbles up, stumbles up to see the death he has wreaked, Flint thinks that perhaps this is better.

Miranda’s face does not disappear when he looks to the body again so he must turn away instead.

-

The world comes back in sharp focus when he emerges from the darkness of the room. The hallway of the abandoned manor now empty of his men. He can still feel the blood crusting between the joints of his fingers and sticking to his skin. The coppery smell of it sings underneath everything that has been here. 

He breathes it in, exhales and thinks that living like this has become far too easy.

Before he can dwell on it any further he hears a noise. The ungainly sound of metal clacking on marble. Across from him, a lantern light spills from a room, illuminating the open expanse of the hall.

Silver stands by its doorframe, looking at Flint in the half light, knuckles pale and white.

Their eyes meet and Flint stops in his steps just as Silver starts his. The oil lamp flickers, judders, wavers as Silver navigates between the debris. In the dark Flint allows himself to clench his hands and unclench them. He knows full well that Silver can walk; he does not need any help. Yet even from here, Flint can see the trouble that settles in Silver’s furrowed brows, he can see the unhappy turn to his lips.

But his eyes

Those eyes do not break away once from Flint's.

And it is something like a revelation to realise that the concern is not for himself, but for his captain. Flint inhales sharply and wills himself not to flinch from it, head turning slowly to look at the tall glass windows that front the house. He wonders how they look like in the daytime, the quality of morning light streaming down through the panes.  


But there is no ignoring the noise.

The stump leg clacks and _clacks_ and _clacks_ until suddenly the light is suddenly in front of him.  


They do not stand close, but when Flint turns to him he can see how Silver is searching. Unafraid. Shameless. His eyes break away from Flint’s to glance at the glass windows as well, face turning into a shadow. His words cut cleanly into the silence of the place.

“You need to get cleaned before we get back.” His lips press into a thin line. “You’re bleeding”

He can feel the breeze which Silver brings; a window must’ve been opened in the other room.

Flint nods at him and makes a move to go down the steps but Silver stops him, his hand resting at his shoulder. It burns hotly and it is all that Flint can do to not wrench it off, to not walk away. But something inside of him tells him to wait, and so he does, his breath held high and tight inside of him.

When Silver speaks again it is soft, barely above a whisper. It is as if maybe the syllables, if spoken quietly enough would dissipate into nothing. That it would mean nothing.

“I can’t walk down the stairs”

Flint breathes again and the heat from Silver’s hand becomes steady instead of cloying. Bloodied and torn as Flint’s hands are, he lays one gently onto Silver’s and holds it secure. Not a single word is passed between them, and as Flint starts haltingly, it is with the knowledge that that there are no words here. 

In this darkness Flint allows himself this small comfort. 

In this darkness maybe it is enough.

-

Outside, the manor looks smaller than it did when they had come in. Maybe it is because there is no moonlight to illuminate it's edges, only shadow and shade. Silver leads them outside, past the iron gates and onto the dirt road.

The questions build inside Flint’s head, a stack of them teetering on the brink. They walk at Silver’s pace and there is a gentle wind that blows about tonight.

“They told me to come fetch you.”

The conversation is less stunted with the sound of the trees rustling in the breeze.

“It is strange to me that they know exactly when to leave you alone. But rest assured they are content with their haul. In my experience, I think that's -“

“What are you trying to say?” It is the first time he has spoken that night, gravelly and scratched. He doesn’t mean to spit those words out, but he cannot retract them now. 

It startles Silver into a silence. His eyes look at the ground before flicking back up to him, back to Flint.

“The crew, they’re not going to talk about _this_ are they?” He pauses, almost stopping. “We’re not going to talk _at all_ about what happened in there?”

For a long time there is nothing but the sound of their footsteps and the wind. It is ripe with the things that Silver knows.

He knows it now, knows that the silence is just as important as the conversation.

“No.” Flint says it soft enough to sound like an apology.

Flint has learned that it has the same effect as glaring at Silver. He wonders when he had started getting used to using it. He does not dwell on the moment he realised he could.

-

Silver huffs as he hands him another clean cloth. The well water is clean and cool against the sticky heat that Flint finds himself in. His quartermaster leans on the wall, back pressed against the wooden post.

“For a man so concerned about how people perceive him to be, you sure have an odd way of showing it.”

Flint doesn't have to reply to those words. He knows that Silver doesn't expect him to. So instead he looks up to meet the gaze he knows is there, and he holds it. Silver opens his mouth as if to say something, lips forming around a syllable - but at the last second, they close.

Silver considers him for a moment, expression thoughtful before speaking again. Each word is measured and careful.

“You are determined to look like a god: infallible, inhuman. Yet," he punctuates that word with tug of the bucket, “ _-yet_ at the same time you rush headlong into danger.”

Flint lifts a brow.

“Don't look at me like that. What you are doing is unnecessary.” Silver gives him a pointed look of his own and swings the bucket back onto the ground. Once he has done that he gestures for Flint to give him his right hand and curiosity getting the better of Flint, he allows Silver to take it.

Silver begins to clean his hand with a cloth of his own, he swipes first at the back of his palm then at his knuckles. He takes care not to scrub where the skin is bloodied and ragged and he dabs gently at the areas where it is. The sting of it almost distracts Flint from the warmth of the hands that cradle his.

“I can take care of myself, you know.” His voice is low and gruff.

Flint expects Silver to quip back almost immediately, but he doesn’t. He sighs, but he doesn’t say another word. Silver instead applies the salve to Flint's hand, applies it with more tenderness than any man should and after that he wraps it.

"Did Howell teach you?"

It earns a small laugh from the man before him, the sound of it rising into the air. "I wish it had been. No, I learned how to do this in St. Johns. My friend, he was one that fought." He pauses then adds, "In all honesty though, out of the pair of us, I was the one who got into more trouble."

"Why am I not surprised?"

Silver smiles in reply. It is a quiet smile that Silver gives him, muted under the circumstances, but there. He smooths the bandages over Flint’s hand, lingering before handing it back.

“When you’re finished ridiculing me, you are very much welcome.”

A beat passes, the sound of the rustling leaves dropping into silence.

“Thank you.”

-

The candle is blown out as they approach the beach and a shy moon peaks out from dark clouds above. The last of the launches bob in the pier and across the inky black bay they can see _The Walrus_.

"He was the only one I was honest with, my friend." Silver starts apropos to nothing. "And he was my only friend that I had in that orphanage. Believe it or not, priests didn't like it when you blatantly lied to their faces. And when they didn't like you, well… your peers didn't like you either."

"What did you lie about?"

"Oh plenty of things, but the main one? Putting nettles into their clothing."

There is a moment of absolute silence wherein Flint tries not snort outright. But once his eyes settle on Silver's face, he cannot help the chuckle that comes out of his mouth.

"Oh go on, laugh it up. I'll have you know that they were paranoid for weeks."

"Oh I can certainly believe that."

Silver _mmhmms_ his agreement, a smirk nestled in the corner of his lips.

He hesitates once they reach the sand and Flint hesitates with him. He offers an arm and his quartermaster takes it, whispering a small thanks.

“He had died when we were twelve. I had thought he was going to get better. Some of the other children who had typhus did... But he didn't. I was alone, give or take, for the entirety of my stay in St. Johns. But the strangest thing was…. I had never once felt lonely."

Silver slows to a stop, making Flint stop with him. When Flint dares to look back, Silver’s eyes are on the ocean, expression pensive as if they have all the time in the world. As if they had that freedom.

In the moonlight he looks deceptively delicate, as if he is made out of porcelain, fine boned and fragile. But when he watches how Silver’s chest slowly rises and falls, he knows that this is not true. Flint sees the clench in Silver’s jaw, then the sigh that releases it before he works his mouth to speak. Silver looks to him now, stares at him now, like Flint is the answer Silver is looking for.

“Because of this I do not know grief the way you do. I do not know death the way you do. I cannot hope to. But what I do know is how you like to pretend that what happened in that room and what happens out here are two different worlds. Because they’re not. And this is me trying to be honest.”

Flint had known this point was coming. 

But to have it happen, it is more than just disappointing. The ugly anger he holds tight within him twists and wrenches into the fore, until he is shaking with it. How _stupid_ did Silver think he is?

The hand at his elbow tightens, and he looks to John’s face, pinched in whatever pain he is feeling now. And Flint suddenly cannot help it.

He feels defeat as he lets out a breath through his gritted teeth. Flint spits his words out, bitter-tasting and sharp.

“Why does it matter to you?”

It takes a couple of seconds for John to regain his composure, his legs shuffling to a better position. Flint can hear how harshly he breathes, but it becomes calmer as he reasserts himself.

“Because I don’t think you understand that right now you are standing on a precipice. And if you fall… if you fall, you might find someone else willing to jump.”  


Those words drift into the night air like smoke, binding them within a cloud of it, wrapped up and sealed in their own world. 

It is intoxicating.

The way John looks at him now is intoxicating.

“Do you know what you are offering?” Flint whispers, his feet moving on their accord. 

He watches as his own shadow eclipse the light on John’s face, closer and closer until both of them are left in the dark. He can feel the heat of John’s hand press against the crook of his arm, the fingers digging as he moves into whatever space left. John’s carefully measured breaths become shallower, quicker. Flint wonders distantly if he places his hand on his heart, would he feel its rabbit drum beat.

John breathes and Flint is so close he can feel the heat of it fan over him.

“Yes”

And it is like they have fallen over that precipice.

The sea cannot be heard between them, the wind cannot be felt, the sand beneath them shifting and the world off-kilter. There is nothing on the other side.  


Nothing but himself and the spell of a man that stands before him

His fingertips prickle once they touch Silver’s skin, almost fever-hot and burning. They drag across the expanse of his throat before finally settling on the space beneath his ear. Flint does not miss the way Silver sways into his touch, his beard pressing now into his palm. He does not miss the delicate hitch to Silver’s breathing when his thumb begins to move slowly over his skin, skimming over the small dip beneath Silver’s lips.

It is dangerous for Flint, for the both of them, to move any closer but Flint know how far to bend the rules, how far to break them. So he pushes and pushes.  
And he pushes into the space left, so close now that he can smell Silver; smell the smoke, the sweat and the spiced rum. So close now that he can see the shadow of movement by his eyes, eyelashes fluttering before they close. So close that he can feel the heat of Silver’s skin, can count his breaths, can feel his pulse underneath his thumb.

Flint breathes in the space between them, lingering right in front of his lips, before bringing himself closer. His head tilts away so that his lips come to the cusp Silver’s ear and Flint can feel how Silver shakes underneath him. He can feel the rapid rhythm that Silver’s heart beats out under his thumb, punctuating the space, the time, into moments. It says more about Silver than anything else he has said tonight and it is at this point that Flint decides that he will not let him fall.

He whispers something soft to him, something that they both know to be true. 

And just like that the world crashes back towards them, the quiet ocean sounds deafening in the remaining silence. Flint withdraws from the burning presence of the man before him, watching as the moonlight again dawns on Silver’s face. His fingertips are like bright spots of heat until even that too drops away and leaves them the lesser for it.

When Flint finally turns back to _the Walrus_ , he does not wait for Silver. 

When Silver’s hand, the last points of contact between them, finally falls away, Flint lets it.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hoped I could convey the delicate nature of their relationship within this piece, and I'm currently debating on whether or not I want to finish the second part (the tone is markedly different you see). Thanks for reading at any rate! :)


End file.
